HAPPY New Year, my dearest readers!
Within the week, on Jan, 6, I will turn 51.
I’m pretty excited to live my golden years.
If my 50th year was any indication of what my fifties are going to be like, then, it must be awesome.
I did so many great things on my 50th year.
And I feel powerful.
Self-realized, self-actualized.
More confident, more beautiful.
Looking at all my pictures, I can even see I have bigger smiles.
And I look very happy.
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And why not?
I have decided to pursue happiness for the whole year.
I mean, I’ve always tried to live happy (happily!) since I turned 40.
You know, making true on that saying, Life begins at 40.
But on my 50th year, I’ve become even more conscious (and selfish) to be happy everyday, to keep stress away.
In fact, I was so evil that I stressed out other people when I start to feel even the slightest stress.
Yeah, I forced happiness on my life on my 50th year.
I made a choice to be happy.
And I succeeded.
Eat my dust, people!
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Anyway, this year 2020, I have decided to reveal some more of myself.
(And you thought it couldn’t be possible anymore.)
At 50, I have nothing much else to lose, but so much more to share.
More and more, people are learning from my life.
(I’m not delusional.
My people tell me I truly inspire, and influence, them all the time.)
And I like that.
I would want that to be my legacy.
But you see, it’s not enough to just learn the things that worked for me.
I really think you’ll have a better life if you also see what mistakes I made that you can avoid.
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I honestly don’t know where to start about this new self-disclosure project.
So I left everything to a deck of cards (two decks, actually).
I got two sets of conversation starter cards as birthday gift to myself.
They have weird and personal questions that are supposed to reveal who we are to our partners.
The cards are pretty expensive so I said, why not share my answers with you?
That way, I don’t have to worry about what to write in my columns.
I answer the cards for my self-awareness, you read my column for your (self-)awareness.
After all, the name of my column is My Life As Art.
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Since I’m not stressing anymore about what topic to write about next, I decided to go back to my regular schedule of three times a week—Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
I think you would really like that if you are a fan reader.
If you are not, well, suck it up, loser!
Because 2020 is about the pursuit of happiness—yours and mine.
But mostly mine.
Happy reading.
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I can tell you I was a great dancer as a child.
(I still am!)
But my greatest childhood feat was graduating elementary with the most number of awards in the history of my town’s central school.
And they were awards that mattered.
Unlike the cheap awards for awards’ sake that are handed out to today’s generation.
I’m elitist to think this way, but I know exactly what I’m saying in the DepEd context so just suck it up!
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I’ve already been to most adventures I’ve wanted and could afford.
Still, I really think a 21-day Amazon forest adventure would be awesome before I turn 60.
Less than twenty-one days, and it wouldn’t cut it for me.
But after 60, I could settle for a six-month cruise around the world.
Last time I checked, the 182-night world cruise from San Francisco to New York cost something like $70,000.
That’s like P3.5 million.
Unless I win the lotto, or marry someone richer, I don’t think it’s gonna happen in the next 10 years. (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
